Do not call them PCMCIA Cards (was "An interesting eBay find ....)

17 Jul 2009

...
   oh ya... and
why are they "VAXen"? 
 Ox/Oxen -> VAX/VAXen is the straight answer (there are a few joke
 answers from back in the day like "why isn't it box/boxen?")

 http://dictionary.babylon.com/VAXen

  ?Are there "PDP 11/44en" too? I've
 got a couple Rainbowen here... 
 Not in English you don't.  At issue is the plural of English words
 ending in 'x' (which I'm sure goes back to Anglo-Saxon or something.
 The rule from Latin would be something like the plurals ending in 'es'
 since that's typical of third declension nouns). 
So are photocopiers of a certain brand Xeroxen? Are helmsmen coxen? If  
I receive one fax then another are they faxen? If I apply one fix to  
my program and then another are they fixen? How about a dog fox and a  
vixen, are they foxen? One mix plus another are mixen? Small pox and  
chicken pox are poxen? One sax plus another saxen? Male and female  
sexen? Do your pay your taxes or your taxen? Surely in 90% of cases  
the norm is to add es. Adding en sometimes makes a noun in to an  
adjective, flaxen, waxen for example. Apart form oxen (a.k.a.  
bullocks), I could not think of one other example of plural xen. There  
may well be more but it was quite easy to come up my list which should  
all be xes.

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Do not call them PCMCIA Cards (was "An interesting eBay find ....)